Much of the time, discussion about climate change is focused on the future – How bad will it be? Will it lead to more conflict? Who will be most vulnerable? But it is in fact a current phenomenon. The climate system is already, for all intents and purposes, irrevocably changed and millions of lives have been changed along with it.

An estimated 1.8 billion people today are between the ages of 10 and 24 and 85 percent of them live in developing economies and/or fragile states. Such youthful age structures can lead to a number of challenges, including increased potential for instability, and countries with large numbers of young people must find ways to address their unique needs.

Nearly 1 billion people lack reliable access to clean drinking water today. A report by the Water Resources Group projects that by 2030 annual global freshwater needs will reach 6.9 trillion cubic meters – 64 percent more than the existing accessible, reliable, and sustainable supply. This forecast, while alarming, likely understates the magnitude of tomorrow’s water challenge, as it does not account for the impacts of climate change.

The governance challenges of natural resource extraction are enormous. What can be done to improve natural resource governance? ECC’s Stephan Wolters talked to Peter Eigen, founder of Transparency International and chair of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) from 2006 to 2011.

“I think it’s appropriate to think about [climate change] adaptation or investments in adaptation as investments to open up the range of choices available to people to deal with an uncertain future,” said Jon Barnett, associate professor of geography at the University of Melbourne, in an interview with ECSP. “In some circumstances it might be appropriate to build infrastructure and hard options where we’re very certain about the nature of the risk…but in other cases, expanding the range of choices and freedoms and opportunities that people have to deal with climate change in the future is perhaps the better strategy.”